I remember the days when I’d get strange looks when I whipped my Keep Cup out of my bag when it was time for a cup of tea on a plane or train.
Thankfully in recent years more people have been embracing small changes that can make a big difference. Which means it’s more likely than ever that you have a sustainable travel lover in your life.
When it comes to eco friendly gifts for travel lovers, there are some great options to choose from. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Eco-friendly adventure gear
I’ve just returned from a Walk Japan trip where I hiked along an ancient road wearing pants that included material made from carbon emissions.
No, my brain can’t fully comprehend it either, but I’m fascinated by Kathmadu’s partnership with LanzaTech, which among other clever things uses a gas fermentation process to convert carbon emissions from steel mills into a raw material that makes polyester fibres for their new Seeker range.
My Seeker fleece joggers included a mix of these interesting new fibres along with recycled polyester and other materials. And while I originally took along my Kathmandu convertible pants which are made out of 100% recycled nylon and have pant legs that zip off when you warm up, in the end I hiked every day in my new Seekers.
As it was November in Japan I didn’t get too hot, and they were so comfortable I just wanted to wear them again the next day. I also stayed sun safe with long and short sleeve UPF50+ tops, and a Seeker tank top with the added benefit of anti odour moisture wicking fabric too.
And speaking of great fabrics, I also love Kathmandu’s Seawastex yarn, which is made from discarded marine nylon waste. So old fishing nets that could have caused problems for marine life are being turned into bags like this handy Pack&Go Pouch.
I would like to say thank you to Kathmandu for inviting me to try some of their new products on the hike. I love collaborating with brands that are doing good things for the planet, and as a Certified B Corp Kathmandu are working to take care of both the planet and the people who work for them, as well as making products that I love to take out into the great outdoors.
A clever one of a kind backpack
When I first heard about Cotopaxi’s Del Día Collection I was drawn to their ethical and sustainable side.
Their Del Dia range of bags are made with 100% deadstock, otherwise known as that leftover fabric that so often ends up in refill. By giving this high quality fabric another chance at life it reduces textile waste, and it also means these bags are estimated to have a 30% smaller carbon footprint than if they’d been made out of new fabric.
I also love the way these bags are all one of a kind. While I chose the Del Dia Dark which is dark on the outside and a mix of colours on the inside you can also get bags with very colourful exteriors.
Thanks to the Cotopaxi’s factory employees having the freedom to choose the colours they use with the deadstock fabric they have to work with at the time, so each bag shares some of the creativity of the person who made it.
The backpacks were ticking a lot of boxes for me even before I realised I can open the Allpa Del Dia Travel Packs like a suitcase. Winning!
No more digging deep in my backpack to try to find something. And there are also lots of other pockets including a padded one for laptops and iPads to help keep them safe too.
Cotopaxi is another great B Corp Certified company, and is also Climate Neutral Certified too. And to add to their sustainable side, no matter how much travelling you’ve done together, all of Cotopaxi’s products are Guaranteed For Good™ so they’ll repair it, replace it, or reward you for trading it in.
A travel water purifier
I’m a big fan of drinking tap water whenever I can on my travels, but unfortunately there are some places where I worry about hidden nasties that could potentially ruin the trip.
Whether you don’t trust the water that’s coming out of the tap in your hotel or want to go hiking and drink water from a lake, there are ways to filter out the bad guys.
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When used correctly portable UV filters like a Steripen can kill 99.99% of bacteria and viruses, or you can buy water bottles like Grayl that have built in purifiers.
Before you start firing up the filters find out if the tap water is a worry in the first place. In some places the water being sold in those plastic bottles is exactly the same as the stuff coming out of the tap, so you can save the filters for when you actually need them.
Travel cutlery and straws
When I see someone say no to plastic cutlery and whip out their own portable set it gives me a little lift. It’s so lovely to see people showing that they care and with so many great cutlery sets out there these days, they can also look good doing it.
I’ve used a few travel cutlery sets over the years including this lovely one from Jungle Culture.
Apart from looking good and being nice and strong to use, I love the story behind them. At Jungle Culture they work with small farms, craftspeople, workshops and ethical factories, and visit each farm personally to ensure that their high ethical standards are upheld.
Their organic bamboo cutlery sets are handmade in Vietnam by local artisans at their crafts workshop, and their reusable bamboo straws are harvested at a small, family-run farm in rural Vietnam before they’re individually hand crafted. The whole process is safe, non-toxic and completely organic, and they’re then stored in hand sewn natural jute ‘jungle pouches’ that have been coloured with eco friendly vegetable dyes.
A Collapsible Bowl
When it comes to eating takeaway on the road often we may have our own utensils but still find ourselves eating out of a plastic container.
One way to get around that one is to travel with a collapsible bowl like one of these that you can wash it out and then flatten it before putting back in your bag.
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While most searches for collapsible bowls will show results for dogs, more humans are starting to use them too so they’re joining in the eco friendly gifts love. And hey, if the dog’s one looks better and is food safe, we won’t tell anyone.
The Scrubba
An Aussie invention, the Scrubba wash bag came about when Ash Newland was off to climb Mt Kilimanjaro with a friend and wondered how they were going to wash their clothes. Ash got to thinking about whether they could create a waterproof sealable bag with a washboard inside, and decided the answer was yes.
After seeing just how well his new invention worked when they tried it on the trip, Ash ended up quitting his job as a patent attorney and focusing on getting the Scrubba out into the world. And after it got a huge response with pre-orders on IndieGoGo the Scrubba was well and truly on its way.
While it was originally created with back packers in mind, my Scrubba washbag is more likely to be found getting to work in hotel bathrooms. Sure, a bit of soap in the bathroom sink can work, but not as well as this baby.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that hotels usually do separate loads of laundry for every guest, so unless you have a full load for them to do The Scrubba is a greener, as well as more frugal, way to go.
Go Lightly by Nina Karnikowski
When travel writer Nina Karnikowski was offered a once-in-a-lifetime trip around Africa on a private jet she did what few would do. She told her editor that she was going to pass on the chance to spend 19 days visiting gorillas in Rwanda, exploring Ethiopia’s ancient rock-art churches and a whole lot more and instead emailed her publisher with the idea for this book.
Go Lightly, How to travel without hurting the planet, is full of tips to inspire readers to explore our beautiful planet as lightly as possible. As well as sharing how to choose the least impactful ways to travel Nina shares tips on how to protect wildlife and bring more mindful practices into your daily travel life.
Go Lightly features interviews with Conscious Travel Heroes including conservationist and filmmaker Céline Cousteau and photographer Jimmy Nelson, and is illustrated by Vietnamese illustrator Xuan Loc Xuan.
You can help support local book shops by picking up a copy in person (if they don’t already have it on the shelves just ask and they’ll be able to order it in), or if you’d like to buy one right now you can find Go Lightly on Booktopia here.
AllTrails Pro
For the hiker, mountain biker, rock climber, snowshoer, or city roamer in your life, an AllTrails Pro subscription is the gift of a whole lot of trails and tracks to explore around the world.
AllTrails has more than 200,000 trails and walks to do, with around 9,500 in Australia alone, including wild walks, national parks, and city walks with reviews and photos from other hikers and campers who came before you.
While the free version of AllTrails has all of the maps to get you going, the Pro version has some great extra features including map overlays with live weather, air quality, light pollution and pollen data.
When you go Pro you also have access to offline maps so you can use GPS to navigate even when you can’t get any phone service. The Pro version also has a great safety feature called Lifeline, which allows you to share the details of your trail with friends and family. If you don’t finish your trail by your scheduled end time Lifeline will send an alert to your safety contacts along with your last known coordinates.
Go Green with BYO Toiletries
If you spend a lot of time in hotels you may have noticed a welcome change in the bathroom. Those tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel are on the way out, and refillable dispensers are on the way in.
As I explained in a story I wrote for The Points Guy two of the world’s biggest hotel groups, InterContinental Hotels (IHG) and Marriott International have announced they’ll completely phase out single use toiletry bottles.
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Sadly single use bottles are rarely recycled and so end up in landfill, and considering Marriott’s new program alone will save around 500 million single used bottles a year that’s awesome news.
That said it’s going to take a while before every hotel makes the switch, and until that happens we can do our bit to reduce waste by filling up travel size containers from larger, recyclable plastic shampoo and conditioner at home.
You can get plain, clear ones, or opt for cute and colourful sets of refillable and carry on size approved containers.
Before wrapping it up and giving it to your friend, you can also fill up the bottles with a product you love to get them off to a good start.
Get in an eco friendly lather
Another way to reduce the amount of plastic you use, as well as lighten the load in your suitcase, is to carry solid shampoo and conditioner bars rather than travel with liquids.
You can find loads of shampoo and conditioner bars on the Biome Store including Tasmania Real Beer and Honey shampoo bars by Beauty and the Bees and a Lilly Pilly solid shampoo by Dindi Naturals in a little travel container.
And speaking of travel containers, a little thing that sends me crazy in hotels is when people open a bar of soap, use it for the one night they’re there, and then leave it to be thrown away.
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Some hotels do try to recycle them, but most don’t so it’s such a waste. And sometimes the products that are being so casually discarded are really lovely too.
In the past I’ve used a plastic zip lock bag to put the soap in so it can travel around the world with me, being used until it’s on it’s very last, slinky legs. At one point I started keeping track of how many soaps I’d saved by recycling a single bar but when it got into the dozens and that hunk of soap was still going strong I stopped counting.
To make the whole travelling with soap thing a whole lot cuter, you can get eco soap saving bags, including these bags by the Kakadu Plum Co that use bags from off cuts from fashion garments so that they don’t go to waste.
For a Good Cause
And while it’s not technically in the travel zone, you might also like to consider making a donation in your friend’s name, or in the case of Kiva, setting up a small loan for them.
More than 1.7 billion people around the world don’t have access to a bank, and so have no way of taking out a loan to help with their home, their education, their health or to start a business. Kiva is an international non-profit that crowdfunds loans starting at just $25.
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If you give someone a Kiva Gift Card they can look through the website and loan the money to someone who inspires them. Then when the loan is paid back they can either take the money out or better yet, keep it in the system and loan it to someone else.
Or you can also make a donation in your friend’s name to I Fund Women, a site dedicated to helping women’s businesses get off the ground. Some businesses even include a little gift from them to their donors so you can then give it to your friend when you share the news.
There are lots of other great charities out there that let you buy eco friendly gifts for a village, like a well through Oxfam Unwrapped or the training and tools for beekeepers through World Vision’s gift catalogue.
With so many incredible organisations out there doing their bit to help the planet it’s easy to find something special for that person (and planet) you love.
If you liked this story and would like to share it on Pinterest, here’s a pin we prepared earlier, with thanks to Kilian M for the beautiful image.
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